Nicola Roxon says Kevin Rudd was a 'bastard' who deserved his removal

Former attorney general Nicola Roxon has unleashed on Kevin Rudd – contending he was a “bastard” who deserved the political bastardry inflicted on him by his Labor colleagues in 2010.

Roxon used the John Button lecture in Melbourne on Wednesday night to deliver an extraordinary public evisceration of Rudd, covering both his period as prime minister and the period he spent out of the leadership campaigning with caucus supporters to get it back.

The Kevin Rudd described by Roxon ran chaotic policy development processes, stifled cabinet collaboration and abused staff and senior officials – calling the then New South Wales premier Kristina Keneally “Bambi” behind her back.

She said Rudd had a “fatal attraction to everyone else’s problems” but displayed little inclination or aptitude for implementation. The former prime minister, Roxon said, was “great at the cut through and then struggled at the follow through”.

“Removing Kevin was an act of political bastardry, for sure, but this act of political bastardry was made possible only because Kevin had been such a bastard himself to too many people,” Roxon said in the lecture.

She said Rudd had always treated her “appropriately and respectfully. Although I was frustrated beyond belief by his disorganisation and lack of strategy, I was never personally a victim of his vicious tongue or temper.

“I did, however, see how terribly he treated some brilliant staff and public servants. Good people were burnt through like wildfire.”

Roxon’s remarks were part of a more wide-ranging intervention about the lessons Labor should learn from its period in government.

She said the party needed to be able to tolerate dissent and discussion, to give up the close reads of opinion polls, to run orderly processes, to understand the purpose of power – which relied on having the skills to implement a progressive policy agenda. “We can want power but we have to want it for a purpose,” she said. “We have to know how to use that power well and to full effect.”

Roxon was a strong supporter of Julia Gillard. She fell out with Rudd during the period when she was health minister and tried to implement national reforms to public hospitals.

She has publicly criticised Rudd before, and made it clear during the course of Labor’s rolling leadership debate that she would never contemplate serving in his cabinet again.

But in the Button lecture on Wednesday, she was not only critical of Rudd, she was self-critical, and critical of colleagues for not applying more pressure to achieve more effective internal governance.

Roxon argued Labor should have been more candid with the voters about the dysfunction within the government that preceded the leadership coup in 2010. This failure of candour meant Labor paid a high price when voters could not comprehend what had happened. It also inflicted damage on Rudd, and on Gillard, she said.

“Although at the time it seemed unimaginable to contemplate being so rude to your own PM, with the benefit of hindsight some of us should have spoken out, if not before, at least immediately afterwards,” Roxon said.

“We made a brutal decision and then shied away from the brutal explanation that was needed,” she said. “We left everyone looking for answers and, by doing this, I think we did a great disservice to Kevin and Julia.”

“On its own it would have cast a long shadow over the next three years in government and with active fanning by Kevin and his supporters it proved impossible to recover from.”

She said Rudd should leave the parliament to ensure the next generation of Labor leaders and MPs had a fair go. “I believe we also must confront the bitter truth that as long as Kevin remains in parliament, irrespective of how he behaves, pollsters will run comparisons with him and any other leader.”

“In my opinion, and it is only my opinion, for the good of the federal parliamentary Labor party and the movement as a whole, Kevin Rudd should leave the parliament – otherwise the action of any Labor leader will always be tested through the prism of popularity compared to him.”